Schöneberg in Berlin
Tuesday, 11 July 2023 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische UnionCategory/Kategorie: General, Berlin Reading Time: 5 minutes
Metro station Nollendorfplatz, the gate to the traditional LGBTQ/Rainbow neighborhood © Babewyn/cc-by-sa-4.0
The area around Nollendorfplatz has been the heart of gay life in Berlin, since the 1920s and early–1930s during the Weimar Republic. The Eldorado nightclub on Motzstraße was closed down by the Nazis on coming to power in December 1932. Holocaust survivor Elsa Conrad co-ran the lesbian bar Mali und Igel. Inside the bar, was a club called Monbijou des Westens. The club was exclusive and catered for Berlin’s lesbian, intellectual elite; one famous guest was the actress Marlene Dietrich. Each year the club hosted balls with up to 600 women in attendance. The painter and printmaker Otto Dix used patrons of this establishment as subjects for some of his works. Christopher Isherwood lived just around the corner on Nollendorfstraße. This apartment was the basis for his book Goodbye to Berlin (1939) and later the musical Cabaret (1966) and the film Cabaret (1972) and is commemorated by a historic plaque on the building.
- Dorfkirche, the old village church, built in 1766
- Rathaus Schöneberg on John-F.-Kennedy-Platz (formerly Rudolph-Wilde-Platz, built in 1914), where, on 26 June 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy held his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in front of hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic spectators.
- Headquarters of the RIAS Berlin (Radio in the American Sector) from 1948 to 1993, then headquarters of DeutschlandRadio Berlin from 1994 until the station was renamed Deutschlandradio Kultur in 2005. The building was erected in 1941 by the IG Farben conglomerate.
- Former headquarters of the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), the public transport company of Berlin, on Potsdamer Straße
- Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe), the largest department store in continental Europe, at Wittenbergplatz
- Heinrich-von-Kleist-Park, first laid out in 1656 by Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg as a nursery, later Berlin’s Botanical Garden, which in 1910 moved to Dahlem. The Kammergericht appellate court building was erected within the park in 1913, together with two colonnades by Carl von Gontard from 1780, which had been moved here from the Alexanderplatz. On 8 August 1944 it was the site of the Volksgerichtshof show trial of members of the 20 July plot led by judge-president Roland Freisler. From 1945 onward, the building served as the seat of the Allied Control Council in Berlin. When the Soviet representatives left the Council in 1948, the Berlin Air Safety Center remained there as the only four-power authority (besides Spandau Prison), while the rest of the building was empty. Today it again serves as the seat of the Kammergericht.
- Pallasstraße Hochbunker, a former air-raid shelter, built in 1943 by forced laborers. A large social housing estate was built in 1977 to partially bridge over the bunker and to cross the street, the former site of the Berlin Sportpalast. This is where Joseph Goebbels held his 1943 “Total War” speech. It was demolished in 1973. The present housing estate is known to Berliners as the Sozialpalast (“Social Palace”).
- Lutherkirche at Denewitzplatz, which now houses the American Church in Berlin.
Read more on Wikipedia Schöneberg (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
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